In brief
- Coinbase has had a choppy week filled with hacks, blackmail, and a pesky SEC probe that just won’t go away.
- But COIN is also a new S&P 500 company and ended the week up 18% compared to last Friday.
- Meanwhile, the Nasdaq has had back-to-back crypto bell ringers: eToro on Thursday and Galaxy Digital on Friday.
Public Keys is a weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks the key publicly traded crypto companies. This week:
Choppy week for Coinbase
Coinbase flagged a $400 million cybersecurity breach this week—one of the biggest in the company’s history. The most troubling aspect is that the exploit arose because an overseas contractor was bribed to steal customer data.
In a video posted online, CEO Brian Armstrong said that criminals were able to gain access to sensitive user data, including names, addresses, partial bank details, and ID documents. But less than 1% of customers were affected, he added.
The criminals intended to blackmail Coinbase into paying $20 million to stop the data being released. The company refused and has since set up a $20 million bounty for information leading to the parties responsible.
To make matters worse, the company is also dealing with a probe from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its user numbers.
The news first appeared in The New York Times. Four unnamed sources told Times reporters that the inquiry began last year during President Joe Biden’s administration and is ongoing—despite the fact that the SEC has dropped its lawsuit against the exchange.
Coinbase claimed in its original public offering document in 2021 to have more than 100 million “verified users.” But by 2023, the company had stopped using that language in its marketing material.
But hey, choppy means ups and downs right? Despite a few bumps, the company recently joined the S&P 500 and is ending the week trading for $266.78. That’s an 18% gain compared to this time last week.
Nasdaq newbies: eToro and Galaxy Digital
Investment and financial services firm Galaxy Digital and trading platform eToro have joined the Nasdaq, under the GLXY and ETOR tickers, respectively.
The paths the companies took to get there couldn’t be more different.
Galaxy Digital has been listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange since 2018. Which is why despite the fact that it’s only just hit the Nasdaq as of this morning—CEO Mike Novogratz rang the opening bell—the company has been reporting its earnings for years.
After the company’s big debut, Novogratz told CNBC that the process the company’s gone through to redomicile to the U.S. was “un-American, unfair, infuriating.”
During the same interview, the crypto CEO alluded to eToro having faced a tough road to a U.S. IPO—but was light on the details.
It’s true that eToro tried and failed to go public in the U.S. via a SPAC deal in 2021.
The few details that have come out about its successful IPO round came from Israeli tech site Calcalist, which said the deal’s underwriters closed the book on orders because the round was 10x oversubscribed.
Call us naive, but that doesn’t sound too unfair or infuriating. The company has soared to a $5 billion market cap after its debut.
Other Keys
- Bitcoin Trouble Company: Healthcare companies love Bitcoin, eh? This time it’s Singapore-based Basel Medical Group that says it’s working on adding $1 billion worth of BTC to its balance sheet. But investors aren’t as twitchy with the buy button as they used to be for glowing orange treasury strategies. The company’s shares, which trade on the Nasdaq under the BMGL ticker, have lost 17% today and are trading for $2.18.
- So long, Wisconsin pensioners: The State of Wisconsin Investment Board sold its entire $300 million stake in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust during Q1, according to recent SEC filing. Or rather, it’s the fact that after showing up on its Q4 filing last year, IBIT is missing from its most recent list of investments.
- Back to office?: Coinbase, which we often refer to as a San Francisco-based company, hasn’t actually had an office in San Fran for a while. It got shuttered in 2021, at the dawn of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the SF Chronicle reports that the company is nearing a deal to move into a roughly 150,000-square-foot space at 1090 Maya Angelou Ln.. If it does, it’ll be sharing an address with Golden State Warriors management. Too soon to rename Chase Center to Coinbase Center?
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